


Time Takes a Cigarette

by loveinadoorway



Category: Constantine, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-08-27
Updated: 2009-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:31:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evil plot bunny from <a href="http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/"><b>acreativemess</b></a>  at the <a href="http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/"></a><b>spnwriterlounge</b> : Dean, Sam, and Constantine all kill demons. The cool thing, John actually sees them, their true forms. So how badass would it be to get all three of them working together to stop the apocalypse? Bonus if Castiel is involved.</p><p>EDIT 29.06.2015: This story will not be continued and will remain unfinished!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_  
**Time Takes a Cigarette 1/? - Crossover fic SPN/Constantine**   
_   
**  
**

**Disclaimer:** Borrowing from two sources now, oh dear. Owning nothing, not even a cigarette butt of John Constantine’s. Title and further quotes used as headlines taken from Rock’n’Roll Suicide by David Bowie  
 **Artwork:**  By the wonderful and vastly talented [](http://wingfrog.livejournal.com/profile)[**wingfrog**](http://wingfrog.livejournal.com/)    
 **Rating:** PG-13 right now, NC-17 if I go with slash later  
 **Genre:** Gen or Slash, the vote’s still out  
 **Word Count:** ~2590  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Constantine, Castiel, Sam, Bobby, Lucifer, Zachariah  
 **Warnings:** Smoking kills, so does drinking and violence. Sex doesn’t if you do it right.  
 **Spoilers:** S4 right up to Lucifer Rising.  
 **Summary:** Evil plot bunny from [](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[**acreativemess**](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)   at the [](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/profile)[**spnwriterlounge**](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/)  : Dean, Sam, and Constantine all kill demons. The cool thing, John actually sees them, their true forms. So how badass would it be to get all three of them working together to stop the apocalypse? Bonus if Castiel is involved.  
 **Author’s note of bothersome borrow worry:** I’m finding it hard to stick exclusively to either the comic Constantine or the movie one, so please bear with me when I totally mix up the two to get the (in my mind) best of both worlds from it.  
The looks of Keanu (sorry, that Sting thing in the comics never did a thing for me), the skills of the comic….  
The fact that there is reference to BOYFRIENDS in the comic practically gives me license to slash ‘em… as if I needed that, LOL! Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a twist, we’re still in the decision making phase.  
And as comic Constantine’s a Brit and I  am SO keeping that, I get to use my fav swearwords in all the world, namely bloody and bugger. A LOT.

  
_Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth_

"We need help."  
Castiel’s brow was furrowed as he checked the odds. They were outnumbered 50:1 and some of the demons appeared to be extremely powerful, too.  
“Stay. Put.”  
With that, Castiel winked out and when he returned moments later, he had a trenchcoated man in tow, who dropped to his knees as soon as Cas let go of his arm and started gagging.  
Dean could see the amount of sheer force it took the man to control himself and get to his feet. The man wore a blue pinstripe suit underneath the tan trench and lit up a cigarette immediately.  
"You bloody angelic bastard. I'd kill you if I had half a chance. You know how I hate travelling your way," the man said in a low, calm voice that was nevertheless laced with an epic amount of venom.

"Who's he, Cas?" Dean asked while he tied a strip of t-shirt around his bleeding left arm with his sore right one.  
The dark-haired man turned his face towards Dean, expression completely unreadable. His eyes were far too old for his face.  
"The name's John Constantine," he growled and dragged deeply on his cigarette. He exhaled slowly through his nose.  
"Like the comics? Get outta here!" Dean shook his head.  
Where did Castiel find these freaks, he wondered.

"His prophet is more visual-minded than yours," Cas said gently. “So he draws. With a bit more of poetic license than Chuck uses in his writings, I might add.”  
"His prophet? He's got his own prophet? And he's for real?"  
Dean came close to giggling hysterically, but that probably was just a mix of endorphins and adrenaline. Plus, indubitably, the knowledge that they would all die soon anyway, given the fact that there was a fucking demon army outside the church, waiting to kill them and drag him back to hell.  
Yay them.  
As usual.

He walked over, held out his hand and said: "Dean Winchester. We're trying to stop Lucifer from starting the Apocalypse, you see."  
Dean was satisfied that his introduction had gone down nice and suave, not giving away the fact that Dean had loved the John Constantine comics and had read them voraciously. Not an ounce of hero worship or fandom in sight. Yup, nice and easy.  
"Been there, bloody well done that. Getting old real fast," Constantine spat, pumping Dean’s hand once and then letting go quickly.  
John didn’t like touching people. He learned too many things he didn’t want to know about a friend, let alone a total stranger.  
Still the young man felt… odd, but okay.  
Definitely not a bad man, although he could feel that Dean knew far too much about evil for his own good.  
John could also feel a whisper of an angel’s grace. Castiel, he thought, since the flavor seemed familiar.

Dean looked over at Sam and shrugged his shoulders.  
"This is my brother Sam. We’re Hunters."  
"You call this thing brother, Hunter? You're more fucked up that me, then."  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
"I can see the demonic part inside of it and I can tell you it isn't pretty. It needs to be put down."  
"You don't touch my brother and you don't call him 'it', asshole."  
There was a murderous glare in Dean's eyes and John Constantine was sure that this was a fight he didn't want to fight at this point. You didn’t survive the shit he had survived by wasting time and energy on fighting the wrong kinds of fights. So he swallowed the nasty remark and tried to keep the disgust from his face.  
He turned to Castiel and asked: "Is it... he... on our side?"  
"Yes. And he is needed as he is," said Cas softly and looked at Sam with a reassuring smile.

Dean was glad that Constantine had backed up.  
Very glad, in fact.  
He wasn’t entirely sure if he could’ve gone through with protecting Sam against John Constantine. And that thought scared him.  
He had been shocked beyond belief by what the man had said as much as by the brief flicker of utter disgust on the man’s face.  
He knew from the comics that Constantine could see demons in their real form. Fucking SEE them as they were, in all their warped butt-ugliness.  
That John had seen something demonic in Sammy right away was not good.  
So beyond not good, actually, that Dean had broken out in a cold sweat at the words.

John looked out the small window in the church.  
There was a veritable demon army outside and the odds didn’t look to be in their favor. But then again, when were they ever?  
It was lead by a strong one, too. A lord of hell, the way it looked.  
More bad news.  
He quickly walked to the right side of the church and looked out the window there.  
He smiled a tight-lipped smile.  
A cemetery.  
How convenient.  
“Can you keep them occupied at the front of the church?” John asked Dean.  
“Guess so. Where will you be?”  
“Out in the cemetery. Calling in some reinforcements.”

 _And the clock waits so patiently on your song_

John stood in the old graveyard, reciting Latin.  
He could feel the power gather around him, felt it coil tightly around him, gaining depth, strength and focus until the final bellowed word of the incantation sent it surging outwards, across the rows of tombs.  
He could feel them move almost instantaneously.  
They were clawing their way upward. The righteous dead were answering his command.  
After just a few minutes, a small army of corpses had assembled.  
He tersely commanded them to attack the demons gathering in front of the old church.  
They obediently surged forward in a wave of rotting bones, crumbling fabric and desiccated flesh.

Dean and Sam had squirted holy water at the demons through the window in the church door, had yelled taunts at them and had fired some shots to distract their enemies from whatever it was that John Constantine was doing in the graveyard. They felt a little foolish, but strangely enough, the demons reacted really strongly to being taunted by two Hunters and an angel.  
After a while, they could see John walk purposefully around the corner of the church. He stopped, perusing the demons as he shook a cigarette from the pack..  
Constantine bellowed a word of power in Latin and suddenly, a part of the demon army started to glow green around the edges, including their leader.  
“These you can kill,” growled John, “the others are merely possessed humans. Leave them to me, I’ll exorcise the demons.”  
“I can take some, too,” hollered Sam and raised his hand through the window in the door to demonstrate.  
“So it’s useful, after all,“ said John quietly to himself as he lit his cigarette and strode purposefully forward.

He barked an order and his ramshackle army of corpses started marching towards the demons.  
The demons were sneering derisively as the band of rotting corpses shuffled closer.  
John Constantine walked among them, apparently unperturbed by the smell and sight of them. His trench was flapping like wings in some preternatural wind and he seemed eerily calm, given that he was facing down a demon army.  
The sneers quickly vanished from the demons’ faces, however, when the first corpses grabbed some demons who were promptly and violently evicted from their hosts in clouds of vile black smoke.  
The demons were screaming in panic.  
Demonic panic meant less control over the limbs of the possessed human, which in turn meant they weren’t running anywhere anytime soon.  
Constantine smiled.

Dean, Sam and Castiel burst from the church.  
Dean and Cas started killing the glowing ones, as Sam went to exorcise the demons from their human hosts. Dean moved over to fight at John Constantine’s side, as Cas went back to back with Sam.  
“How does that work with the corpses and the demons?” gasped Dean between thrusts and parries.  
“Dead man’s hands,” said John tightly as he brought his tattooed lower arms together to get the power flowing and started mass-exorcising the demons from a group of possessed humans they had cornered against the church wall.  
“Dead man’s hands? So, think I should keep me an arm of one of them for future use?” Dean asked, at least half-seriously.  
John Constantine calmly finished reciting the words of the ritual.  
“Wouldn’t work, unless you’re a closet necromancer who can animate that hand at the time,” gasped Constantine, as more black smoke belched from the mouths of the possessed.  
The rest of what it took to animate a proper mythical dead man’s hand and achieve that same result on demons was on a need to know only basis, of course, and John was not going to divulge the secrets of his trade to someone he just met.  
“Necromancy. A fun game for the whole family,” Dean snorted as he pulled The Knife Formerly Known As Ruby’s from the last of the green-glowing demons.

Sam had exorcised his fair share of demons.  
The dark looks that John Constantine had given him whenever the exorcist could spare a second to glance elsewhere, however, hadn’t gone unnoticed by Dean.  
Clearly, Constantine hadn’t been comforted much by Castiel’s assurance that Sam was on the side of good and was, in fact, needed for some higher purpose.  
Dean’s teeth worried at his lower lip. He had looked the other way a lot since he had returned from Hell.  
He should’ve noticed Sam’s addiction to demon blood much, much earlier and he should’ve reacted differently when he did.  
Sam was a far cry from okay, Dean knew.  
And he wouldn’t be, not until he went into detox.  
Which arguably was a very bad idea with the Apocalypse on their hands.

Constantine led the dead back to the graveyard and put them to rest again, breathing thanks and a blessing to them for their service and apologizing for disturbing their rest.  
He hunkered down and placed his palm on the ground, feeling for signs of disturbance and unrest.  
All was calm, all was quiet.  
Good.  
Castiel stood a few spaces back and watched, back rigid and face unreadable.  
“I bloody well know you disapprove, angel. I don’t need a discussion about the evils of my ways right now.”  
John lit another cigarette.  
“I wasn’t going to discuss anything, John,” said Castiel quietly, shifting slightly. “My disapproval means nothing at this point. This is the Apocalypse, we do whatever it takes.”  
“Damn right we do, angel. Consider it a warning, then, to keep out of my hair about my methods.”

 _Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road_

They were speeding down the freeway.  
Seating order in the Impala had been a touchy subject, as John flat out refused to sit either next to Sam or the angel. Cas couldn’t mojo somewhere, because he didn’t dare attract the attention of Zachariah and his followers, so he was in the backseat with Sam.  
Constantine was riding shotgun and getting crankier by the minute, since Dean had threatened graphic violence should John dare to light a cigarette inside his baby.  
John fingered his battered pack and discovered that there was just one slightly droopy cigarette left.  
“Oh bugger, I need to buy fags,” he growled.  
“What?” Dean gasped.  
“Oh, bloody hell, you stupid Americans. I have to buy cigarettes, see? Only one left?” he waved the crumpled pack around. “Next chance we get. Plus, I need a smoke soon, anyway. And if I can’t do it in the car, you got to stop, or else you’ll live to regret it.”

Dean pulled over at the next gas station.  
Wouldn’t hurt to see if they could fill her up as well. Not all gas stations still had fuel.  
The demonic disturbances and the fucking Horsemen of the Apocalypse were taking their toll on the supply chain.  
Still, at times you could still pretend that everything was completely normal. Some of the small towns they had passed through were carrying on as usual, with no hint of the Apocalypse around. Children were playing in the streets, couples were strolling along the lanes and proud homeowners were mowing their lawns.  
Those were the times when Dean felt like he was choking.  
The times when he would ask the quiet night air why he of all people had to bear the burden of knowing what was going on. And even worse, of being the one who was supposed to stop it.  
Cas, of course, always knew and came after him, but the one comfort he had to offer Dean was faith and faith was a commodity Dean found hard to come by these days.

As he filled the Impala’s tank, John stepped up behind him, unlit cigarette in his mouth.  
“Fill me in,” he said in his level voice.  
“I sold my soul to save my brother, went to hell, broke on the rack, thus broke the first of the 66 seals of the Apocalypse. Turns out some angels have an agenda of their own and actively want the world to end. Cas went rogue at long last when he found out and Sam inadvertedly broke the last seal a couple of weeks ago. Which makes us even, I guess,” Dean concluded with much more levity in his voice than he actually felt. “Lucifer rose and the Four Horsemen are at large. The whole Apocalypse shit seems to take a lot longer than I ever expected, though.”  
“It’s a lot more complex than it reads in the bible,” John said quietly.

“Well, as if that weren’t enough of a shitload of problems, Sam was fed demon blood as an infant and has been tricked by another demon to drink more demon blood lately. He’s addicted. Can’t detox him right now, what with the fucking Apocalypse on its way. And yeah, I get how you have an issue with him. Just… don’t let what you see convince you that that’s all he is. He’s a good kid, really.”  
Dean’s words had confirmed what John had felt when he had shaken the Hunter’s hand.  
Another poor bugger who had been dished more than anyone should be made to carry. He felt almost tempted to put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, but thought better of it.  
At the end of the day, the comfort of strangers never sat well with anyone, so he turned away and walked a few paces to where he could safely light his cigarette.

Dean screwed the tank shut.  
Constantine saw things other people didn’t. It should make him feel uncomfortable, but for some reason he felt relaxed around the man. More than he should, probably, but he was stuck with a renegade angel and a junkie brother right now, trying to stop the fucking Apocalypse and he was just tired of pretending. Pretending around Cas that he was alright, pretending around Sam that everything would be alright, pretending on the phone with Bobby that he wasn’t worried about a thing, especially not Sam’s addiction, pretending to himself that he was going to be able to be the weapon that would bring Lucifer down.  
He felt like he didn’t have to pretend to be anything around John, because they were... alike.  
There was too much knowledge in the other man’s eyes, just like in his own.  
Constantine didn’t expect anything good from the angels, neither did he – with the exception of Castiel.  
Maybe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evil plot bunny from [](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[**acreativemess**](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)  at the [](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/)**spnwriterlounge**  : Dean, Sam, and Constantine all kill demons. The cool thing, John actually sees them, their true forms. So how badass would it be to get all three of them working together to stop the apocalypse? Bonus if Castiel is involved. Check, he is.

__  
**Time Takes a Cigarette 2/? - Crossover fic SPN/Constantine**   
  
  


**Disclaimer:** Borrowing from two sources now, oh dear. Owning nothing, not even a cigarette butt of John Constantine’s. Title and further quotes used as headlines taken from Rock’n’Roll Suicide by David Bowie  
 **Artwork:**  By the wonderful and vastly talented [](http://wingfrog.livejournal.com/profile)[**wingfrog**](http://wingfrog.livejournal.com/)    
 **Rating:** PG-13 right now, NC-17 if I go with slash later  
 **Genre:** Gen or Slash, the vote’s still out  
 **Word Count:** ~2590  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Constantine, Castiel, Sam, Bobby, Lucifer, Zachariah  
 **Warnings:** Smoking kills, so does drinking and violence. Sex doesn’t if you do it right.  
 **Spoilers:** S4 right up to Lucifer Rising.  
 **Summary:** Evil plot bunny from [](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[**acreativemess**](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)  at the [](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/profile)**spnwriterlounge**  : Dean, Sam, and Constantine all kill demons. The cool thing, John actually sees them, their true forms. So how badass would it be to get all three of them working together to stop the apocalypse? Bonus if Castiel is involved.  
 **Author’s note of bothersome borrow worry:** I’m finding it hard to stick exclusively to either the comic Constantine or the movie one, so please bear with me when I totally mix up the two to get the (in my mind) best of both worlds from it.  
The looks of Keanu (sorry, that Sting thing in the comics never did a thing for me), the skills of the comic….  
The fact that there is reference to BOYFRIENDS in the comic practically gives me license to slash ‘em… as if I needed that, LOL! Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a twist, we’re still in the decision making phase.  
And as comic Constantine’s a Brit and I  am SO keeping that, I get to use my fav swearwords in all the world, namely bloody and bugger. A LOT.

_But the day breaks instead so you hurry home_

They pulled into Bobby’s lot at sunrise.  
Dean had driven the last few miles purely on instinct and from memory, trying hard to keep his eyes open and his attention focused.  
Sam was sleeping in the backseat and Castiel at least had his eyes closed for the last two hundred or so miles.  
Constantine was staring blankly ahead with eyes rimmed red from fatigue. He hadn’t closed his eyes once. John seemed continually alert and the man always seemed to know when Dean came close to nodding off.  
That was when he would either break his silence and start a brief conversation or tersely demand a cigarette break.

After they had passed the South Dakota border, Dean took to getting out of the car with John. The brisk night air made him more alert, at least for a little while.  
He watched Constantine drag on his cigarette. Didn’t look like he was enjoying it, more like he was trying to spite someone.  
They stood in companionable silence for a while.  
The night was very quiet, except for a few bird and animal sounds. There was no other car around and no settlements for miles.  
“They expect me to stop Lucifer. The angels, I mean,” Dean said softly. Didn’t know why he said it, but that sentence had threatened to choke him for at least the last 70 miles.  
“They are always expecting things from people. Things that are actually too big for a human to handle. Too heavy to carry. Angels are fucked up like that.” John fell silent again.  
It seemed to Dean that the man wanted to say more, but there didn’t seem to be anything else forthcoming.

A light breeze was tickling the back of Dean’s neck as they stood side by side, leaning against the Impala.  
“I… I don’t think I can do it,” Dean whispered in a strangled voice after a while.  
“That’s the fucked up thing about prophecies. Whether you are actually able to do it or not, you will do it and in all bloody likelihood die trying. They don’t care. They got that whole screwed up Vulcan ‘the good of the many outweighs the good of the few’ crap going for them. All hail the noble sacrifice and all that.”  
John lit another cigarette with the butt of the previous one and inhaled deeply.  
“But at least that stupid renegade shit of an angel of yours had the good sense not to pit you against the devil all by yourself. We’ll see what we can do.”  
“You’ll stick around for this? Not your fight, strictly speaking…”  
“Always my bloody fight, strictly speaking,” John said with a shrug and a half smile, half sneer that made him look a lot younger, like a teenage badass angling for a brawl.  
Dean was oddly comforted.

Dean parked the Impala in the usual spot.  
Bobby came out of the house to greet them.  
He eyed Constantine suspiciously, gave him a long, hard once-over from his shoes to the top of his head, frowning at the tan trench.  
“Another angel?”  
John barked a throaty laugh.  
“Hardly. I just have a penchant for trench coats. John Constantine.”  
Bobby opened his mouth, then closed it again, shook his head, before finally just saying: “Bobby Singer.”  
Bobby just wasn’t going to question stuff like that anymore, not after they had dropped Chuck the fucking prophet of the Lord on his doorstep.  
Just when he thought he’d finally seen it all, the boys and their angel came up with something even freakier.  
All in a day’s work, Bobby guessed and just shrugged and took the arrival of a comic book hero in stride.

Chuck was drunk, as always.  
5:30 in the freaking morning and he was shitfaced. Not a pretty sight, the way he sat there, silently crying into his whisky.  
Before, he had been drinking to cope with the splitting headaches and the mind-blowing visions.  
Now he was drinking because he didn’t get either anymore.  
The archangel Raphael had taken the visions away as punishment for that “making it up as we go” thing.  
Dean thought that Chuck and Cas had gotten off lightly, actually, because the archangel could have killed them easily, too. But luckily enough, it had turned out that Raphael was no dummy and had seen right through Zach and his nefarious designs.  
So, the archangel actually was on their side. And had taken their access to the prophecies away. Right at the start of the fucking Apocalypse. Brilliant.  
Go, team.

Castiel was fidgeting. Okay, compared to your average human, it was minimalistic fidgeting you probably needed a magnifying glass for, if you didn’t know the angel very well.  
“Lemme guess, Cas, you have to leave.”  
Dean snorted a harsh laugh into his whisky. Okay, so not the time for liquor, but so the time for liquor, really.  
John Constantine silently toasted Dean with his own, the dark eyes echoing Dean’s sentiments.  
“Yes. I… am being called. There are important news I need to hear.”  
“Whatever happened to that thing where you’re not supposed to mojo anywhere because you need to stay below the radar?” Sam asked, with just the hint of an undertone.  
John approved. Demonic taint or not, the kid was no dummy.  
“The news are too important, I have to leave!”  
And the angel was gone.

Dean wearily lay down on the floor in one of the upstairs rooms with a blanket and a pillow.  
He’d be stiff and sore when he woke.  
Hell, he was stiff and sore from the fight already, so… he’d just be stiffer and sorer when he woke, then. He’d had worse, for sure.  
At least he was at Bobby’s and thus to all intents and purposes safe for the next few hours.  
His stomach was churning.  
Whisky without food first, always a bad idea.  
But at least he might be able to sleep with a little help from the good Dr. Daniels.

He was out for the count within seconds and awoke sweating and shaking a mere two hours later.  
The nightmares had increased in strength and changed in flavor over the last few weeks.  
While he used to dream about being tortured in hell, he now was always facing down Lucifer and failing spectacularly every single time.  
He saw Sam being killed, he saw Cas being killed, he saw Bobby being killed and this time, he even saw John Constantine being killed. Every single person he cared for would die a horrible, drawn out, agonizingly painful death and it would be his fault.  
Blood and gore, gore and blood.  
And the screaming. Always the screaming.  
He shook himself and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

Constantine was sitting at the kitchen table, the fingers of his right hand idly playing around with an unlit cigarette, while his left was clutching a coffee mug in a death grip.  
The man looked like hell in the much too bright morning light.  
He looked up when Dean flopped down on the chair next to him.  
“Didn’t you want to catch some sleep, Winchester?” John growled.  
“Yeah, had two refreshing hours, that’s all I need,” said Dean, trying to sound awake and moderately cheerful, more for the benefit of Bobby than aimed at Constantine. “And you?”  
“What does it look like?”  
Bobby slammed a plate full of bacon and eggs each in front of Dean and John.  
“I’d rather have an Irish breakfast,” John said under his breath.  
Dean laughed and winked. “Not gonna happen. Bobby’s gonna feed us first, before he even lets us within five miles of the booze.”

_You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it_

The usual whispery rustle of wings heralded the arrival of Castiel.  
John frowned, but wished the angel a good morning regardless.  
He had had too many dealings with Castiel and his brethren to trust unreservedly. There would at the end of the day always come a point where an angel would follow his own agenda, be it the agenda of the Lord or something else entirely.  
Right now, Castiel at least seemed to be on their side and John intended to make good use of that while it lasted. Hopefully while making some provisions of his own for the time when the angel’s allegiance would change.  
Dean had hope in his eyes as he looked at the angel. Hope so bright and shiny that it made John wince to see it.  
He just hoped that the angel wouldn’t crush that hope. It looked like that might be the final straw that could break the Hunter.

“Lucifer is gathering his forces. I think we are getting close to the end,” Castiel said, his voice even graver than usual.  
Dean swallowed convulsively.  
He had hoped it would take longer, had hoped he would have more time to prepare. This wasn’t good. He fought his rising panic down resolutely.  
“What do we do, Cas?” he asked softly.  
“We will make the necessary preparations and meet him head on,” said the angel. “Sam, you need to do some research. Bobby, we have need of supplies.”  
Everyone was starting to talk at the same time after that.  
Everyone, except for Constantine.  
John got up and walked out of the house, his hand clutching the cell phone in his coat pocket.

“What do you see, Andy?” John ground out.  
“And a good day to you, too, John. I thought you never wanted to know beforehand?” said Andy the prophet softly.  
John snorted.  
“Whatever happened to ‘take your goddamned prophecies and stuff them where the sun doesn’t shine?’, hmmm?” There was a smile tinting Andy’s voice.  
“Yeah, forget that. Times have changed. This is the real deal, the honest to God Apocalypse and I fear we’re being screwed over by the angels. So I need to know the truth, Andy.”  
“The truth is that you are being screwed over three ways from Sunday by the angels, John. I’d say get the hell out of there, if you weren’t the only one who can save that Winchester boy.”  
“Bloody hell. What should I do?”  
John listened intently to Andy’s soft, drawly voice and little by little, a grim smile started to form on his face.

He’d have to keep Dean Winchester safe.  
Now that wasn’t exactly a new gig for him. Sooner or later, he’d always end up with a damsel in distress or someone vitally important to either the guys in the black or the white hats.  
And it would all end in a bloody mess.  
On a good day, he and his charge would still be standing at the end of things and he would have a brief moment of peace.  
The new thing about Dean, however, was that he usually managed slightly better not to fall for his charge quite so fast and quite so hard.  
As a matter of fact, it had taken just one look this time.  
One look at a battered face, mobile mouth and tired green eyes and John Constantine was toast.  
He understood Dean on a primal, instinctive level.  
He saw the similarities and the differences and on that one cigarette break, he had thought that Dean felt the same connection, if not the same attraction.  
Well, whatever.  
The imperative thing to do was see to it that the angels wouldn’t get Dean killed with their scheming, double-dealing ways.

When he walked back inside the kitchen, Sam had powered up his laptop, Bobby was cleaning a gun and Dean and Castiel were deep in conversation.  
The angel looked up as John walked in and looked puzzled at the sneering smile that John shot at him. Well, let Castiel puzzle as much as he liked, John’s head was off limits to angels, had been for years.  
Constantine poured himself another coffee and leaned against the kitchen counter, taking slow, even sips.  
He put the empty mug in the sink, then turned to Bobby.  
“Bobby, can I take a look at your… supplies? You know, the herbs and stuff?”  
“Sure. Help yourself to anything you need, stock’s in the cupboard in the hallway and downstairs in the panic room.”

John took an empty bottle from the shelf on his way out of the kitchen, opened the cupboard and started to assemble the necessary ingredients.  
His long, slim fingers hovered over some jars and bottles, but the steady hum of the spell he was working on let him know what to take and what not to.  
The power was singing inside of his body, as it always did whenever he let the beast out of its cage, as it were.  
When he had taken a look at every single vessel inside the cupboard, he went down the narrow staircase and walked into the panic room, guessing that some of the more powerful things might be found locked safely in there. He found the remaining three ingredients quickly.  
As he poured some ground mandrake root into his bottle, he stilled as suddenly footsteps were drawing closer.

He didn’t have to turn to know who it was. The Hunter had very special way of walking, his very own rhythm. John would’ve recognized him anywhere.  
“Dean. What is it?”  
“What are you doing, John?”  
“Working on a spell for the fight against Lucifer.”  
“What kind of a spell?”  
Constantine resumed pouring the mandrake root, then put the bottle down and drew a wicked-looking knife, the blade of which was covered in occult symbols.  
“It will help you,” John growled softly. “That’s all you need to know.”  
Dean shifted uncomfortably. John rolled up the sleeve on his left arm.  
“Castiel said to ask what exactly you’re doing.”  
“Well, if that angel of yours wants something from me, he’d better ask me himself. I don’t hand out trade secrets. Ever. Especially not to the Heavenly Host.”

With that, John drew the knife across his arm without as much as a wince and let the blood dribble into the bottle.  
He carelessly dabbed at his wound with a handkerchief, then rolled the sleeve of his shirt down again.  
“Hey, okay, don’t shoot the messenger.”  
Dean probably would have felt more comfortable in a convent, facing down a group of rosary-toting penguins with his pants down.  
He had told Cas that it was a bad idea to go after John.  
Actually, he had also told Cas to go do it himself, if he was so keen on knowing what Constantine was doing. Cas had said John would be more likely to talk to Dean than to himself.  
Appeared to be a correct assessment.  
At least, Constantine was still talking.  
“Look, Dean. If there’s one thing I have learned in the years that I’ve been doing this job, it’s that angels always have agendas. You may trust Castiel. Doesn’t mean I have to. Doesn’t mean I ever will.”  
There was a quiet finality to John’s voice that Dean recognized and respected.


	3. Time Takes a Cigarette 3/? - Crossover fic SPN/Constantine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evil plot bunny from [](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[****](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)**[](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[**acreativemess**](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)**[](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)  at the [](http://community.livejournal.com/spnwriterlounge/profile)[****](http://community.livejournal.com/spnwriterlounge/)**[](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/profile)[**spnwriterlounge**](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/)**  : Dean, Sam, and Constantine all kill demons. The cool thing, John actually sees them, their true forms. So how badass would it be to get all three of them working together to stop the apocalypse? Bonus if Castiel is involved.

_**Time Takes a Cigarette 3/? - Crossover fic SPN/Constantine**_  


 **Disclaimer:** Borrowing from two sources now, oh dear. Owning nothing, not even a cigarette butt of John Constantine’s. Title and further quotes used as headlines taken from Rock’n’Roll Suicide by David Bowie  
 **Artwork:**  By the wonderful and vastly talented [](http://wingfrog.livejournal.com/profile)[**wingfrog**](http://wingfrog.livejournal.com/)    
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Genre:** Slash  
 **Word Count:** ~2605  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Constantine, Castiel, Sam, Bobby, Lucifer, Zachariah  
 **Warnings:** Smoking kills, so does drinking and violence. Sex doesn’t if you do it right.  
 **Spoilers:** S4 right up to Lucifer Rising.  
 **Summary:** Evil plot bunny from [](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[****](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)**[](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/profile)[**acreativemess**](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)**[](http://acreativemess.livejournal.com/)   at the [](http://community.livejournal.com/spnwriterlounge/profile)[****](http://community.livejournal.com/spnwriterlounge/)**[](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/profile)[**spnwriterlounge**](http://spnwriterlounge.livejournal.com/)**  : Dean, Sam, and Constantine all kill demons. The cool thing, John actually sees them, their true forms. So how badass would it be to get all three of them working together to stop the apocalypse? Bonus if Castiel is involved.  
But what is the game the angels are playing? 

 _Don't let the sun blast your shadow_

They left at dusk. Castiel was giving them general instructions, but wouldn't let on about their destination. Constantine had filled the empty space in his spell bottle up with a quart of Bobby's finest and had told Cas in a way the angel surely had never been spoken to before to mind his own bloody business.  
He wasn’t going to talk to any angel about that bottle at all, nothing personal, no offense.  
That had led to Castiel riding shotgun in Bobby's battered old car and John sprawling in the backseat of the Impala.  
That arrangement suited Dean just fine, actually, since he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that Castiel might once more be under orders he wasn't telling them about.

Sam was still reading up on some things on his laptop.  
His brother had been rather quiet and reluctant to support Castiel in the research.  
Which was also a) strange and b) an indicator that something wasn't quite right about what was going on right now.  
“John?”  
Constantine sighed deeply. Here it came. As expected. It was just a show Dean put on about being the menial labor guy with not much to offer by way of brain power. At the end of the day, he was a clever guy.  
“Yes, your gut feeling is correct, Dean. There's something going on. And no, I'm not going to say more right now. Wouldn't help any and would be a mistake since the car’s not warded.”  
Sam looked at John in the rear view mirror and said: “When you went outside at Bobby's, did you call your prophet?”  
Demon taint boy was no dummy alright, as noted before.  
“Yes. Never ever talk to that loon, usually, but thought I'd make an exception, seeing that angel boy is back toeing the line, apparently. Didn't take him long to unrogue himself, eh?” John snarled.

Dean gripped the steering wheel tight. His knuckles were white and his face was grim as he drove on. Castiel had saved him from hell.  
Castiel had helped them.  
Castiel had defied direct orders for him.  
Or so he had thought.  
Castiel might be betraying them, might be betraying him right now.  
Dean had a sick feeling in his stomach. He just didn't know what to believe anymore.  
Angels had no feelings, he knew that.  
Had he deluded himself that Cas did? That Cas would risk falling for someone like Dean Winchester, a tainted man, a man who had given in to more sins before turning twenty than most people did in a lifetime?

“None of this is your fault, Dean. I can assure you, I have it from the highest authority, namely a prophet of the Lord.” Constantine was smiling a tight-lipped smile at Dean, but his eyes remained grave.  
He understood unrealistic senses of responsibility and guilt trips better than most people, understood precisely the line of reasoning that had unerringly run through Dean’s head. He knew what it was like to walk in Dean’s shoes – well, mostly, anyway.  
But at the end of the day, they all needed to stay alert and remember who the problematic element really was.  
“See here, Dean, I’ve been around precisely this block a few times already. What we are is caught in the middle of a heaven and hell rumble in the jungle, with no rules and no holds barred. And we’re definitely getting  royally screwed over by both sides, unless we find the third way. Our way. You with me so far?”  
Dean and Sam nodded.

At midnight, they pulled into the parking lot of a motel. Bobby’s car parked next to them.  
“We’re stopping here for the night. It’s safer to travel by daylight, too much evil is travelling tonight,” John said when Cas tried to protest. His tone was such that Castiel didn’t even try to argue, merely looked at John with his head tilted sideways and a puzzled expression on his face.  
Bobby and Cas took a room together, Sam, Dean and John another. The second the door closed, John  began drawing a ward on it.  
Sam almost instantly started to make notes of the symbols John used, since he had never seen such a complex and powerful ward before.  
Constantine finished the ward and sat at the dingy table with Dean and Sam. John peered intently at his hands for a few minutes, trying to decide how much to tell them. In the end, he settled for almost the whole truth. No need to toss in the roughly 5% of nastiness, though.  
That was his to carry.  
 _  
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget_

“Okay, here’s the deal. Lucifer can’t actually start the bloody Apocalypse good and proper without sacrificing the breakers of seal one and seal 66.”  
“Fuck,” said Dean and whistled. That, in fact, suddenly made so many things fall into place that it was unreal.  
“Indeed. You made sure he didn’t get you so far, but the warped part of the Heavenly Host, the sick fuckers that were following Uriel, among others, haven’t given up on their bit yet. So they are trying to bring you to Lucifer.”  
“And Cas knows this?” Dean swallowed hard.  
“Dean, I don’t know and I don’t really care, except that I hope for your sake that he doesn’t. But whether he does or not doesn’t change a thing, the outcome is the same. So for the sake of your soul and peace of mind, let’s just assume they managed to convince Castiel that bringing you to the devil is what the Lord wants and that they fed him some elaborate cock and bull story to make it plausible.”  
“What do we do then?” Dean asked and hated how cracked his voice sounded.

As John outlined the plan in terse, clipped monotone, Sam was sending Bobby a text message.  
They had codes for everything, though not exactly one that said ‘the angel might be a traitor’. So Sam used the one that said ‘possible enemy in your room, don’t let on’.  
Bobby texted back almost immediately that he understood and would come over as soon as he could.  
Constantine took the bottle from his pocket and a bowl from the motel room’s kitchenette. He poured a generous measure of the stuff into the bowl, then took three bags from inside of his trench.  
A white power was measured first into the mix, next he poured some black powder from the second bag. Bag three contained a small, grey feather.  
It, too, went into the mix, which then started to hiss and smoke and changed from something resembling a pesto gone bad to a milky, opalescent liquid.  
Constantine rose and took four dusty shot glasses from the top of the minibar. He poured equal measures of the liquid into them and topped them up with whisky.

Bobby came into the room.  
“Okay, what gives?”  
Bobby exhaled slowly, after Sam had given him the Reader’s Digest version.  
“And we’re trusting Constantine over the angel exactly because?”  
John snorted a laugh. Okay, so you probably had to be smart as a Hunter if you wanted to live to Bobby’s age.  
No, bollocks.  
You had to be smart as a Hunter, period, if you wanted to survive even one Hunt.  
He shook another Silk Cut from his pack and lit up, pointedly cocking his eyebrow at Sam, who shook his head resignedly. No use arguing about not smoking in the room. No use at all.  
“Trust me or don’t Bobby, doesn’t make a lick of difference to me. It’s the truth, though.”  
He tossed his cell over to Bobby.  
“Call Andy. He’s my prophet. He’ll tell you.”  
Bobby looked John Constantine hard in the eye, then shook his head and tossed the cell back.  
“No need for prophets. I know people. That’s enough.”

John handed each of them a shot glass, then raised his own in salute.  
“Gentlemen, this stuff tastes like shit, but all the same, here’s to us, the end of the world as we know it and the drinks we’ll have when we survive this shit!”  
They downed their drinks.  
Sam started to gag, Dean was coughing, Bobby pulled a face and Constantine merely looked disgusted. To say that the stuff tasted like shit was the understatement of the fucking century, Dean thought. It made the thought of actually ingesting excrement sound like a good idea, it was THAT bad.  
John measured out generous amounts of whisky and they chased the potion down with it.  
“I’d better go back to my room, before the angel gets suspicious,” said Bobby and left.

 _You're watching yourself but you're too unfair_

As soon as the door closed behind Bobby, Sam mumbled something unintelligible, flopped down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.  
“Is that the potion’s doing?” Dean asked, waiting for his own body to show signs of imminent shutdown.  
“Yes, but it affects people in a different way.”  
“Good. I’m not tired.”  
Dean actually was feeling a bit hyper. Antsy, even.  
“How about going for a walk?”  
“A walk? A fucking walk? You gotta be kidding me!”  
“Well, I spotted a bar a few hundred yards down the road and walking shitfaced is bloody well marginally safer than driving shitfaced,” John said with a grin.

They had a few drinks and compared notes on a couple of things they had had to deal with in the past.  
 It was a good evening, where good talk interchanged with companionable silences that were never awkward.  
They walked back to the hotel in the wee hours of the morning.  
On the parking lot, John lit a final cigarette before entering the motel room. Much as he loved provoking Sam, he wasn’t going to make them sleep in a smoke-filled room.  
“You know, when I watch you smoke, I really ask myself why you do it. Doesn’t look like you enjoy it.”  
“I have my reasons. And enjoyment has actually nothing to do with it. You’re very perceptive.”  
“Are we going to come out of this one alive?”  
John laughed. The rumbling sound was oddly comforting.  
“Damned if I know, Dean. Not looking too good, but we might just have an ace or two up our sleeves.”  
“Do you think Cas knowingly plays along?”  
“I honestly don’t know, Dean, but frankly, at this point it hardly matters if he’s just a Judas goat or the butcher himself, the ending is the same in both cases.”

They were leaning against the Impala.  
Dean felt sick to his stomach.  
John was right, of course. It hardly mattered, where the outcome was concerned, yet it was such a huge difference to him, personally, if Cas was a traitor or not. His whole sanity seemed pretty much to hinge on Cas not being a traitor at this point.  
He was tired of this, tired of being used, tired of not knowing if he was on the right side of the fight, tired of pretty much all the crap that had happened ever since his father had died, actually.  
Suddenly, Constantine turned to Dean, grabbed the front of his t-shirt in one hand and said: “I am going to kiss you now. You can bloody well kick my ass for it later, but that’s what I’m going to do now.”  
“Okay.” Dean said in a quiet, small voice he hardly recognized as his own.

They came together in a violent clash of flesh and need and hunger.  
Dean didn’t understand it, didn’t know where all that need came from, but he was past caring.  
His whole body was aching from the burden he carried, all the losses and betrayals and the guilt and the anger and he just wanted to lose himself in the solid warmth of another body.  
That it was John Constantine’s body was unexpected and felt slightly strange, but nothing more than that.  
He just wanted to feel anything but the shark’s teeth of his pain ripping away at his soul.  
He had never needed anything more in his entirely life.  
Their lips met and it was harsh and hard and messy, all tongue and teeth and wild abandon, plundering at each other.

John tasted of cigarettes, booze and mysterious spices.  
 They were sliding their bodies against each other and Dean felt the length of John’s erection rub against his hip.  
He made a small sound of frustration, as he tried to move in closer and John held him back.  
Constantine broke the kiss and asked huskily: “You sure?”  
John knew that this wasn’t anything Dean had ever done before. Dabbled in, maybe, but never followed through. The knowledge was part of the whole stream of things he learned about Dean from just touching him.  
“Yeah. Just… get on with it already.” Dean gasped, still tugging at John’s trench to bring the other man closer.  
John leant in and recaptured Dean’s lips, demanding and absolutely certain.  
Dean rolled his hips against John’s, pressing and rubbing his erection into the other man’s hard, pronounced bones, savoring the feeling of Constantine’s own hard-on as he brought his body closer still.

It was like a dance, but one where nobody as yet was in the lead, even though John was a lot more certain about his wants and needs than Dean at this point.  
The older Winchester had done his share of tentative experimentation in his adolescence and – if they were out of food and money while their dad was on a hunt – had given the occasional blow job in some bar or alley to be able to feed his little brother.  
But this?  
This was something else entirely.  
One part of his brain kept saying ‘what the fuck, dude?’, while the rest was with the program with astonishing absoluteness.  
He fumbled for his car keys, stuck them into the lock behind John’s butt with difficulty and with a lot of effort managed to unlock the Impala.  
“Back seat,” he gasped and John somehow managed to pull-shove-jostle them inside.

“Dean,” John growled, voice unbelievably sexy, “I’m … I wasn’t aiming for this.”  
“S’okay, I already said I want it,” Dean ground out.  
“Not the point.. I’m not prepared. No rubbers, no lube…”  
Dean moaned and in lieu of a reply simply unzipped John’s pants and started jacking Constantine off. John reciprocated immediately and huffed a little laugh into the hollow at Dean’s collarbone.  
They kept kissing the whole time and it was so good that that alone threatened to bring them to orgasm. John started teasing Dean’s balls with his other hand and Dean had managed to undo some of John’s shirt buttons and was toying with Constantine’s nipples.  
When John started to manipulate Dean’s balls in the most expert manner, Dean had to break the kiss for the sheer need of air.  
They were sliding and rocking against each other and Dean suddenly started to curse John out loud and soundly for not thinking about bringing lube and condoms, because somehow, this just wasn’t enough by a long stretch of the imagination.

Constantine rumbled another laugh against Dean’s neck and slid the hand not busy with Dean’s cock between the Hunter’s cheeks and let his thumb caress the ring of tight muscle he so longed to breach with his cock, but couldn’t.That proved to be enough to drive Dean over the edge and the feeling of Dean’s hot, coiling come on John’s hand made him follow immediately.  
They lay together in a limp, tangled heap afterwards.  
“You still okay with this?” purred Constantine against Dean’s ear.  
“No. I’m fine with this, actually. And my one and only gripe is that it didn’t go far enough for me.”  
“Good.”  
“Yeah, next time, fucking be prepared, dude.”.

  



End file.
